Should New Orleans voters agree to raise the ceiling on their property taxes to pay for police and fire protection, Mayor Mitch Landrieu plans to collect the maximum allowable to beef up the city's beleaguered police force.

Whether he'll do the same for the Fire Department, however, is another matter.

"It may or may not be worth asking the public to put up more money for it right now," Landrieu said Tuesday during a meeting with the editorial board and journalists from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune.

The 10-mill property tax rate hike, which cleared the Legislature last month, is a central part to Landrieu's fiscal strategy during his second term as New Orleans' top elected official. He described a budget strained under the weight of federal orders to reform the police force and Orleans Parish Prison and an order to pay the city's share into the firefighters pension fund.

The administration estimated that the prison consent decree could cost as much as $22 million a year, and that it could take another $40 million to increase the NOPD to 1,575 officers -- the number Superintendent Ronal Serpas said he needs to properly police the city. The present force has fewer than 1,200 officers.

Coupled with residents' increasing demands for safer streets, more working streetlights, better playgrounds and fewer potholes, the city's annual spending could rise another $150 million to pay for it all, according to Landrieu's estimates.

The mayor remained visibly frustrated over a federal court ruling that the city must pay at least $17.5 million into the firefighters' pension fund. He has consistently criticized the fund's governing board for making what his administration has described as questionable investments over the years. He has appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I think it's an unjust judgment," he said Tuesday. "I will not pay it unless I'm forced to pay it."

The order is tentatively scheduled to come up June 26 before Civil District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso, who initially ordered Landrieu to pay up in March 2013.

Pointing to that ruling and ongoing negotiations with firefighters over their pensions, Landrieu only committed to raising property taxes to pay for police. That increase would set the tax rate for police services at a little more than 10 mills and bring in $15 million more a year, according to administration estimates. Put another way, the owner of a house assessed at $200,000 would pay roughly $100 extra every year toward police services on top of $100 paid already. And a homestead exemption to lower that payment wouldn't apply, according to the law.

Landrieu's balking at raising taxes for the Fire Department took Nick Felton, president of the firefighters union, off guard Tuesday.

"We're willing to work things out with the city, but this 'my way or the highway' that comes out of their vocabulary is just not going to work...This isn't Crimea," he said, referring to Russia's recent controversial annexation of that peninsula from Ukraine.

The tax measure still has several hoops to jump through before becoming law. In order to be considered this year, it requires a constitutional amendment approved statewide on Nov. 4 and a vote among New Orleanians on Dec. 6. The City Council has until July 24 to put the measure on the December ballot.

"I am inclined to let voters decide on the police millage increase," Councilwoman Stacy Head said Tuesday in a statement. "I cannot, however, reach a firm policy position on any single proposed increase without a full appreciation of several other important considerations, including potential millages to be requested by other taxing authorities such as the library, a drainage fee that likely does not require voter approval, and a long-term plan to fund the maintenance of the city's streetlight system."

"Now that we are faced with a difficult and narrow choice, I will work with the council and the administration to go over the budget carefully, determine what needs to be done and take our findings to the citizens for their decision," Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell said in a statement.

Councilwoman Susan Guidry's office said she wouldn't comment Tuesday, and the other four members didn't immediately respond to an email request for their views on the tax increase.

Landrieu will have to walk a delicate line as he seeks to balance residents' demands against the city's financial obligations. There is some room for optimism. Sales tax collections jumped 9.6 percent to $40.7 million in the fourth quarter* of 2013. Fees for licenses and permits reached $7.9 million, up $1.2 million from 2012. And projections indicate the city will collect $8.8 million more in taxes in 2014 than expected when the council adopted the budget in December, according to administration estimates.

Nevertheless, the mayor said his administrators are looking in every corner for additional revenue, including a possible fee attached to energy bills to pay for streetlight maintenance or requiring payments in lieu of taxes from tax-exempt, nonprofit property owners such as universities.

"If you look at our entire structure, basically everybody uses and a few people pay," Landrieu said. "What you want in a taxing system that's fair is one that's broad-based so that everybody pays a little bit, there are as few holes in the cheese as you possibly can (have), and one that keeps it so low that it creates economic growth."

*CLARIFICATION: The original version of this story did not identify the $40.7 million in sales tax revenue as coming in just the last three months of 2013. It has been updated above.